"A user (the viewing user) of a social network may choose to view a news feed about another user (the subject user) in the social network," it says.

"A list of the subject user's activities within the social network may be drawn from various databases within the social network. The news feed is automatically generated based on the list of activities."

There's a lot more detail, particularly about how the information is displayed and how it's filtered and prioritised.

Although the patent doesn't cover the whole concept of status updates, it could nevertheless cause shockwaves in the industry. Twitter might object, for example, as it launched around the same time using some very similar ideas. MySpace and Google use similar techniques.

"Facebook patents the newsfeed... there goes the neighborhood," tweeted Chris Messina, a member of Google's new Social Web Team.